Pietro Metastasio was the embodiment of opera seria. Both before and during his time as ‘Caesarean poet’ to the Habsburg court in Vienna he wrote libretto after libretto on mythological or historical ...

It’s a truism that posterity has a selective memory. Christoph Willibald Gluck is hailed in opera history as an early reformer of the art form, one who attacked the artificial and worn-out conventions ...

Before he changed the course of operatic history with his "reform" operas of the 1760s and 1770s, Gluck was a respected and thoroughly conventional composer of opera seria, almost all of them written ...

(La) Semiramide riconosciuta, Movements: Il Ciel mi vuol oppresso Christoph Gluck, Composer Classical Opera Company Ian Page, Conductor Ezio (1750 1st version), Movements: se povero il ruscello ...

Before Gluck embarked on his reform of opera that led to the purity and concision of Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), he wrote serious pieces full of elaborate display. Ezio was composed for Prague more than ...

This little-known opera to a libretto by Metastasio will be of interest to scholars and aficionados of the baroque, but offers no great surprises to anyone else. It represents the first version of a ...